Improved mode of closing up boot-legs



l UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PEEs'roN wAEE, 'or NEwToN, AND cALvIN -E.'TILToN, oET1seUEY, Mass.

IMPROVED MODE OF CLOSING 'UP BOOT-LEGS.

Specijicat'ionjbrfming part of Letters Patent No. 73,062, dated January 7, 1868.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that we, PRESTON WARE, of Newton, county of Middlesex, State of Massachusetts, and CALVIN It. TILTON, of Tisbnry, in the county of Dukes and in the State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Closing or Siding Boot- Legs; and we do hereby, declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable those skilled in the art to make and use the saine, reference bein g had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which drawing- Fignre l represents a side elevation of a boot-leg made according to our invention. Fig. 2 represents a boot-leg support-ed on the arm of a sewing-machine. Fig. 3 represents the front and hack of a boot-leg ready to be stitched together. Fig. 4 shows the front and back bent up in order to bring together their edges at their hollowed portions.

Similar letters in the several iigures indicate corresponding parts.

y Our invention relates to closing or siding up boot-legs by stitching by machinery, with a lap seam. The ordinary mode of closing or siding up boot-legs is to place the outside surfaces of the fronts and backs together, their edges being brought even with each other and sewed inside out, so as to bring the seams on the inside of the boot-leg when the latter is turned, a welt being interposed between the opposing surfaces. When the seams are completed for both sides, they are trimmed smooth, and the boot-leg or upper is put on a stretcher and theseams rubbed down, after which operation the bootleg is turned right-side out, by the aid of iron tubes or other devices.

This process is laborious and expensive, and,

besides, being injurious to theleather. It also.

frequently disturbs or stretches out the crimp of the front more or less, so as to make it difiicult to produce a good-shaped boot. Furthermore, the leather is liable to be broken or weakened in the operation of smoothing down the seams, and in boots of coarse leather the person of the wearer is liable to be chafed by reason ofthe prominence of the seams. Scams made according to this method cannot, on ripping open, be easily mended, so as to make what shoemakers call a good job.77

In our improvement we avoid these difficulties or objections, and produce a stronger, smoother seam, and one not liable to rip easily, and which if it does rip can be easily got at for repairs, and we produce a boot-leg or upper that can be lasted more easily, treed quicker, and be more symmetrical when made up than by tbe old method.

Our invention enables us to close or side up boot-legs or uppers upon sewingmachines, employing for both seams machines whose supporting-surfaces consist of arms for holding tubular work, or employing, if preferred, flat table machines for the first seam, and machines with projecting arms only for the second seam.

In closing or siding up boot-legs according to our invention, we dispense with the welt or strip used in the old method, and we lap the edges of the fronts upon-the edges of the backs or vice versa, as may be preferred by the maker, keeping the right side of the leather without, and unite them to each other upon a sewing-machine by one or more rows of stitches, thereby making a dat lapped seam. The lapped edges of the fronts and backs are stitched or sewed togetherin the ordinary manner of stitching a plain or straight seam up to the place where the edges of the work cease to be parallel with each other. This place in this example is indicated at a a, Fig. 3, from which point the edges are hollowed out to reduce thel diameter of the boot-leg, and put in what manufacturers call the spring.7 The hollowed portions cannot be lapped by simply drawing the edges toward each other while the parts lie at or are in the same plane, unless by stretching the material out of shape and thereby enlarging the diameter of the bootleg.

To accomplish the desired result, namely, the overlapping of the crooked divergin g portions of the fronts and backs, without stretching the parts or altering the 'pattern or shape to which they are cut, we have invented the following method, to wit:

We proceed with the sewing or stitching in the ordinary way of sewing on a sewing-machine, as far as the edges are straight-say from the top of the boot-leg down to about the point a, or the point where the edges begin to diverge-when we begin to raise the work so as to curve or bend the unsewed portions upward, the outer edges thereof being bent np more than the inner edges, so as to allow the latter to approach and to overlap each other to the extent required. When the dverging portions of the edges have been stitched together, the work is bent downward toward the table, or other supporting-surface of the machine, to allow the converging edges to be drawn outward far enough to let them overlap to the required extent, the sewing proceed ing meanwhile until the seam is completed to the bottom of the bootleg. While the converging parts of the crooked or curved edges are being stitched together, the outer portions of the fronts and back will become wrinkled or puckered, more or less, according to the extent of the convergence to be overcome.

In making the second seam, the unconnected edges of the boot-leg are brought together upon the surface of a cylindrical or other properly shaped arm of a sewing-machine, in the manner illustrated in Fig. 2, and the sewing or stitching thereof is accomplished in the manner explained for the first seam, the material being curved upward to enable the diverging portions to overlap, and being brought down and drawn outward to put the converging portions into proper relations with each other to continue the lapped seam to the bottom of the y boot-leg.

We are aware of the invention of James Scrimgeour, patented J une 9, 1857, whereby a pattern cut with straight sides is sewed together, producing a truncated cone, and we are also aware that water-hose has been made with lapped seams riveted, producing a plain cylinder, and we, therefore, do not claim broadly the use of lapped seams.

In order to give the boot-leg the proper shape, the patterns are cut out with diverging edges, and a bootleg with diverging edges united by alapped seam, has not, to our knowledge, been made previous to our invention thereof.

Our invention is also applicable to boot-legs cut so as to have only one seam, and it is also applicable to those whose backs are eut with straight edges, and the fronts with crooked edges, or vice versa, the principle of'operation in 'siding them up with lapped seams heilig the same as when both hacks and fronts have diverging edges, as above explained.

What we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

Making a boot-leg whose diverging edges are united by a lap-seam by machinery, substantially las described. i

^ PRESTON WARE.

CALVIN R. TILTON.

Vitnesses:

HENRY M. Howe, GEORGE BlsBEE. 

